Australia: Queensland notifies Labour Hire Licensing Regulation

The Labour Hire Licensing Regulation 2018 (Qld) was notified Friday, 6 April 2018. Key matters addressed in the Regulation are:

• exclusions from the scheme established in the Labour Hire Licensing Act 2017 (Qld); and
• detail of the operational requirements of the scheme, particularly in relation to applications for licences, fees and reporting.

A brief update on these matters is below. For more information, the full text of the Regulation is available here and our earlier update on the Act passed in September 2017 is available here.

Exclusions

The Act applies only to the supply of a ‘worker’. Importantly (and helpfully for the vast majority of corporates), the Regulation provides that the following individuals are not workers:

• an individual where the provider and the person supplied to ‘are each part of an entity or group of entities that carry on business collectively as 1 recognisable business’. The expression ‘recognisable business’ is not defined, however one example provided is where a business is comprised of a number of companies responsible for different aspects of the business, and employees are supplied to work for other companies within the business;
• an individual whose annual wages are equal to or more than $142,000 (the high income threshold under the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth)) and is employed other than under an industrial instrument or a modern award;
• an individual who is an executive officer of a corporation and is the only individual supplied by the provider; and
• an ‘in-house employee’ (as defined) whom the provider supplies to another person to do work on a temporary basis (examples given include a consultant supplied to another business to conduct a review).

Operational detail

The Regulation prescribes the information required to accompany an application for a licence:

• about whether the business is financially viable. The Regulation essentially requires information relating to the business’s ability to meet operating costs and expenses, pay workers on time and meet other financial obligations in relation to workers;
• demonstrating compliance with workplace health and safety, workers’ compensation, fair work, migration, anti-discrimination, transport and accommodation laws; and
• about a range of other topics, for example information about other licences and the solvency of entities associated with the applicant.

Under the Regulation, the fees payable for licence applications, renewals and restorations vary depending on the total amount of wages paid by the business. For example, for a ‘tier 3’ business that paid a total amount of wages of $5 million or more in the preceding financial year, the licence fee is $5,000.

The Regulation also:

• requires a licensee’s report under the Act to be in the approved form, and prescribes detailed matters to be reported – for example, whether a worker paid a fee for being supplied and specific details about accommodation and services used by a worker;
• prescribes changes in circumstances that must be notified to the Chief Executive; and
• details the requirements for the keeping of records and documents.

Next steps

The Regulation, as well as the Act, will commence on 16 April 2018. Those providing labour or using labour hire in Queensland should seek information about the legislation and how to ensure compliance ahead of its commencement.

This article was written by Georgia Williams. For more information or advice on this topic, please contact: